Sunday 15 December 2019

The Christmas Charts: 1989

The Christmas hits of 1989 all have one thing in common, they're all songs that have rarely been heard since 1989. There was "December" by All About Eve which is a record I'm not sure I even heard in 1989. They are of course remembered for their appearance on Top of the Pops with "Martha's Harbour" which gave them their only Top 10. The rest of their hits didn't do so well, with 7 of their 9 Top 40 hits charting in the 30s, this being one of them at 34.

At the other end of the charts we had the biggest act of the year, Jive Bunny & the Mastermixers. Having scored number ones with their first 2 hits, they went straight in at number one with their third, "Let's Party". It's a medley of Christmas songs, I guess given the individual songs all got played regularly in the years that followed made this redundant for future Christmases, and the inclusion of "Another Rock & Roll Christmas" by Gary Glitter probably killed any chance of this being resurrected years later. It only managed one week at the top though and had to settle for Christmas number two.

What could possibly keep Jive Bunny off the top in 1989?

Well take arguably the biggest Christmas record of the 80s and get Stock Aitken & Waterman to put their stamp on it and you get "Do They Know It's Christmas?" by Band Aid II. The inclusion of Cliff Richard meant he was involved in the 2nd Christmas number on in a row, and he wasn't finished. You don't hear it anymore though because people play the original instead.

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